


Prompts and Bites

by beaubete



Series: ficlets and drabbles [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-02-16 15:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 7,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2274537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of all of the prompt fic and fic bites that are too short to be on their own but long enough to archive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bond/Q - first time

He wasn’t really nervous.  Not shy—he knew Bond loved his body; hadn’t he said as much with his words and his eyes and his hands and his mouth?—not that.  Anxious implied scared, too.  He wasn’t scared.  Bond touched his thigh and he jumped.

"We can do this some other time, Q.  It’s just anal sex.  We don’t even have to do this at all; there are a lot of couples who don’t.  I can spread you open, lick you out again nice and slow—you like that, I know you do.  I know because you beg so prettily for me to do it, because you bend over anything you can to try to entice me—"

"—because I buy strawberry-kiwi flavored lube and learned how to put that shower head to good use," Q added, wriggling enthusiastically.  "But I want it.  Your cock.  I want it, Bond, and you’re going to give it to me.  I’m not going to ask again, Double-oh Seven."

Bond was quiet then, concentrating.  Q could feel the moment Bond spread him with one hand.  He could feel the lube going on cold, could smell the fake fruit flavour and the smell of Bond’s body, could hear the condom being opened behind him.  He was about to turn back, about to say someth—

"Oh," Q cooed, sighing into the pillow.  He was loose, sloppy wet with lube and saliva and worked open on toys.  He’d taken a plug that was larger than Bond’s cock, for crying out loud—there was nothing to be anxious about as Bond pushed into his body in tiny thrusts.  "Would you just fucking fuck me?" he snarled, and Bond’s next thrust took the breath from his lungs.  He was whimpering by the time Bond reached around to pull him in time with his thrusts, wailing as he came in the sheets.  Bond’s own come landed across the small of his back like warm rain, and Q sighed luxuriously, stretching his arms above his head.

"Everything you ever wanted?" Bond asked wryly.

"Depends how fast you can get it up again, old man."


	2. Bond/Q - sleepy, exhausted, but enthusiastic sex

It was the delay in Atlanta that did it. Bond is sure of that, just as he wonders why it always happens that way: at the tail end of a long joint project, he’d waved goodbye to Felix as casually as he could, jumped directly into a cab, and got himself on standby for the next flight back to Heathrow, ignoring the ticket he’d been assigned for for later in the day, and.

And promptly got himself stuck in Atlanta. For eight hours. It shouldn’t have worked that way, not with the sun out and shining, the wave of storms passed hours ago on his way from Nevada, and with not a cloud in the sky they’d boarded, queued for takeoff, stopped, come back to the jet bridge, queued for boarding again, been sent back to their seats, sent to another terminal for a different plane, and finally lifted off what felt like days later. To make matters worse, he’d been in coach for eight hours, unable to sweet talk the flight attendant into a free upgrade or even stretch his legs; he’d attempted to make up for it by getting riotously drunk only for the credit card machine to go down mid-flight.

Even so, Bond staggers into the dark, wet English night only four hours later than he’d have been if he’d taken the later and supposedly longer route through New York that he’d been scheduled on. And bugger going in to MI:6 to check in; he intends to crash between Q’s sweet thighs and not come up for air until he’s contented. They’ve got a week of lost time to make up for, one of those long nights apart being their anniversary, though he couldn’t have told Mallory that he couldn’t go on the mission because he needed to celebrate milestones with his secret boyfriend. They’d suffered through the separation, still very much in the honeymoon phase at six months since he’d given in to the temptation to do more than just watch that plaid-covered arse from the corner of his eye, and they’ll be together again just as soon as he figures out how to get his ruddy key in the lock.

The lights inside are off, candles guttering in a half-lit trail to the bedroom and a perfect nymph on the bed, completely bare…and snoring slightly. Q’s glasses are pushed up into his hair, his lashes fluttering on his cheeks, and Bond doesn’t have the heart to wake him. He leans in to scoop him into a more comfortable position, and Q’s fingers curl on his shoulder.

"—home?" he asks softly, muzzily, and Bond presses a fond kiss to his hair.

"Go back to sleep."

"No," Q whines, clearly exhausted. "I wanted to blow you. I’ve been looking forward to it for days."

"Darling, you would choke to death."

"It’s not that big," Q grouses, and Bond laughs. "Fuck me, then. Wanna feel you."

"Nuh-uh. Not happening tonight."

"Hand job?" And Q looks so hopeful, so sweet with his sleep mussed hair and his skin golden in the candlelight, that Bond agrees, reaching down to help him with his zip and buttons. He climbs onto the bed with Q and they wrap their hands around each other, stroking. "Missed you."

"I missed you, too," Bond murmurs. And it’s been so long since they were together; his hips begin to jerk, thrusting at Q as his grip goes limper and limper, looser and loose—"You’re asleep, aren’t you? You little tit."

"Mm-mm," Q mutters sleepily, but he doesn’t rouse. It’s okay; Bond takes them both in hand, burying his nose in the familiar scent of Q’s hair. It’s the closeness that does him in, the sleepy lull of Q’s heartbeat in the vein of his cock, and Bond comes between them, messy and content. He finishes Q off with a few more strokes, then drags himself away from Q’s snoozing form to hunt a flannel to clean them both off. They can wait for a proper greeting tomorrow.


	3. Bond/Q - exhibitionism/voyeurism

The thing that Bond doesn’t seem to have accounted for is Q’s paranoia; he may be actively wanking to the video that’s playing in front of him, but it’s not the one Bond thinks it is; tucked into the corner, there’s a CCTV feed.  It’s live, and the video it shows is enough to make Q shiver.

On the screen, Bond leans against the corner, one fist clenched over his mouth and one down his pants.  His wrist must be constricted in the small space, and the thought of Bond furtively trying to have one off at the wrist there in the hall where anyone can pass is enough to make him moan.  He’s a filthy hypocrite, though hypocrite isn’t quite the word he’s looking for—a filthy something or other, because when he moans, Bond’s head jerks toward the door he’s peering into, his wrist moves faster, the shuffling sound just outside gets louder.  He’s watching Bond.  Bond’s watching him.

He touches himself slower, raises his fingers and licks until he’s slick and messy, until the circle of his hand on his cock sounds wet in the room.  His knees spread until he can see Bond shivering in the hall, and when he licks the precome that’s gathered on the pads of his fingers, Bond stills on the screen, hips pumping in hard, tight twitches as a dark stain spreads across his crotch.  Q’s cock gives a sympathetic pulse and then he’s coming practically untouched, biting his lips to hold back the cries that would bring someone coming.

When he’s finally back to himself, the screen shows an empty hall.  Bond’s nudged the door shut, granted him some level of privacy now the show’s over.  Q grins to himself and sets about deleting the evidence.


	4. Connery!Bond/Llewelyn!Q - toys

”Now pay attention, Double-oh Seven,” Q was saying.  ”I’ve got something here that I think you’re really going to enjoy.”

Bond eyed the silver device cautiously.  ”It’s not going to explode, is it?  You do have a preference for explosions, Q.”

"Pish-posh, Double-oh Seven, and don’t be such a ruddy  _girl_  about it.”

"You said it would improve my," Bond paused delicately, "performance.  In the field."

"Oh, it will at that.  It’ll really put the chilies in your piccalilli, Bond."

"Oh, is it lunch time?"

"Oh!" Q huffed, frowning.  "Just drop your pants and bend over already."

Bond winced at the cold jelly.  ”Steady on, old man,” he murmured, and Q’s hand was gentle in the small of his back.

"Sorry, Double-oh Seven.  My apologies."  Q’s fingers were next, rubbing delicately in a place only the most adventurous girls were ever willing to go.  Bond’s spine stiffened and Q kneaded at the tension.  "Just a little more," Q murmured, and Bond didn’t miss the way he rolled the stuff between his fingers to warm it before applying it.  This time he sank into the raised table almost against his will, sighing as Q rubbed and prodded and stroked against his skin.  

"This may be a bit cold, now," Q warned, easing the blunt tip of the cone end of the device against him.  There was a gentle but inexorable pressure as the taper spread him wide in a way he’d never been before until finally with a sensation like a little pop of release, it sank in, his muscles fluttering around the valleyed shaft behind the girth.  He wasn’t closed, not at all, but the plug’s flared base pressed firm against his arse, assuring him it wouldn’t slip in.

"And just how is this supposed to help me, Q?" he demanded, trying for annoyed and ending up sounding strained even to his own ears.

"Clench, Double-oh Seven.  Just a little," Q instructed.  Bond did—having something in there made it easier to focus which muscles he was using—and the plug dipped, pressing something inside that made him see stars.  "This will teach you how to exercise your pelvic floor muscles.  That will make sex more rewarding for you and lead to deeper pleasure for your partners.   A happy partner is more responsive in bed and more likely to share secrets, and so on and so forth.  I’m sure you see the merit in it."

"And what else does it do, Q?  I’ve never known you to create something with only one feature," Bond said wryly, wriggling on the desk with his stuffed arse in the air.

Q held up a small remote control.  ”Oh, Double-oh Seven, I thought you might never ask.”


	5. Bond/Q - desperate public sex

Later, he’ll feel silly, impatient, but for now he can’t even remember how they’ve managed to wait this long for it, how they’ve managed to keep their clothes on until now as they slide across the slick leather seat of the black cab.  Their thighs touch, their hands brush; Bond shoves a fifty through the glass and slams it shut, and all three of them know exactly how this ride’s going to go.  Q mumbles the address and the driver nods once, tipping the mirror away.

"God," Bond’s murmuring against the skin of his neck.  "God, God."  And Q wants to retort with something smart, wants to be witty and devastating, but all he can manage is a moan, quiet and hungry.  It’s enough.  More than enough, as Bond scoops him onto his lap, rocks him forward until they’re grinding together and the cabbie coughs—they’re blocking the rear window, so Bond lays him down and presses him into the seat with his body.

Q whines, doesn’t even realise he’s making words—“Fuck me, fuck me, oh, fuck me”—until Bond’s panting back at him, mouth on his skin and starved: “Yes, yes, yes, God, yes.”  They’re rutting—Bond’s slotted his cock into the crease between Q’s cock and his thigh, and he’s never felt anything so bloody  _perfect_  in his life—like teenagers on a date, Q’s hands gripping Bond around the shoulders and at the nape, Bond’s palm flat on his stomach so he can’t rock up into his thrusts, and it’s a wonder they haven’t tipped the cab off the road yet.

Bond goes for the zip of Q’s trousers and the cabbie coughs again; he changes tactics, dips a hand in the back of Q’s pants instead and rubs at a nipple through his shirt with his thumb.  Q sighs, pulls Bond down to his mouth by the ears and then drags him down further, butterflied knees smacking the back of the seat in front of him while the cabbie grumbles.  Bond feels incredible above him, absolutel—they’re not moving.  Q stills, blinking up into the still black of the cab’s roof.

"We’re not—Bond.  Bond!" Q snaps, tugging Bond away from the love bite he’s been sucking at Q’s collarbone.  "We’ve stopped."

"Mm," Bond hums.  "But we can start again."

"The cab, I mean.  We’re there."

"Get out of my cab," adds the cabbie.


	6. Tanner/Q - getting together

It was almost stereotypical the way it happened: in the early hours of the morning after Bond had managed to pop up in a completely different part of the world than anticipated—this time with  _three_  blondes in tow—and he and Tanner had just polished off the last of the very fine bottle of bourbon he’d bought himself for Christmas last year as a gift for putting up with the Double-ohs’ shit when some active part of his mind seemed to mutter, “Oh, fuck it” and he found himself clambering into Tanner’s lap like a uni student on her first holiday in Greece.  To his credit, he had worked Tanner’s tongue into his mouth and unbuttoned the entire length of his shirt before Tanner’s brain kicked back in and gently pushed him back.

He struggled against Tanner’s hands for a moment before settling back.  ”It’s because I’m not Bond, isn’t it?” he asked sadly.  Tanner gawped at him.

"Aren’t you two dating?"  It was Q’s turn to stare.

"I wouldn’t—that egotistical—thinks his cock is God’s gift to everyone with a hole to stick it in—!"

Tanner’s laugh broke the tension.  Slowly, Q’s joined it, at least until Tanner ended it with a kiss that frankly took his breath away.  So did the blowjob after.


	7. Tanner/Q - 64. Multitasking

Q brushes his teeth with one hand and fiddles with his mobile with the other.  Bill deplores the coffee rings on his paperwork, the sandwich crumbs in their bed, the harried kisses rushed in the morning as they dart out the door in different directions.  It’s frustrating, mostly because he knows they both wish it were different.  There’s nothing hurried or hasty about the affection they have for one another, about the soft eyes Q turns on him in the half-lit summer mornings when they’ve told everyone they’re off to the Cotswolds but are honestly holed up in their bed pretending there’s no world beyond their little island of sheets or about the water-silk feel of Q’s hair through his fingers those rare days Q can collapse against him, exhausted beyond comprehension and all cat-like appreciation of Bill’s hands on his head.

It’s been a week from hell: two agents lost—one to the other—and he knows Q’s at home on mandatory leave probably raging at himself.  Mallory won’t let him home to comfort him, and it’s honestly the closest Bill’s ever come to just walking out at just the memory of Q’s broken expression and the ungentle recommendation he take some time to straighten his head out.  Instead, Bill lets the tea slosh when he drops it on Mallory’s desk, cocks a supercilious eyebrow and a “sorry” that barely makes it out the side of his mouth, and curls himself around his mobile in the executive loo after locking the door behind himself.

“‘lo?”  Q sounds dozy, possibly anxiety meds or just the first mid-day nap he’s been allowed in the time Bill’s known him.

"How’re you holding up?" Bill asks, voice soft.

"Holding up," Q hums back.

"What’re you doing with your unexpected day off?" Bill asks.  He hopes Q’s staying busy, keeping his mind off of it.

"Thinking of you."

And because he’s never known Q to do just one thing at a time, Bill prods: “And?”

"No and," Q replies sleepily.  “‘s nice."  Something larger than anything Bill has ever known before is pressing against the inside of his ribs, and for a moment, he’s afraid to say anything.  "Bill?" Q asks.  He sounds more awake, worried, and Bill shushes at him.

"Go back to sleep," Bill tells him.  On the other side of the line, Q gives one of those yawns Bill’s always sure is going to pop his jaw out of place, and briefly Bill can see him: lying in their bed in a sleepy pile of sunlight, tousled and sweet-limbed and soft.  He aches to see it.

"Okay," Q agrees.

"Okay?"

"Yessir.  Back to sleep."  A silly faked snore.  Bill laughs.

"Sweet dreams."

"Mmhm," Q mumbles, already drifting.  And who could blame Bill for being unable to concentrate the rest of the day?  Multitasking is overrated.


	8. Bond/Q - 82. Can You Hear Me?

Bond’s not entirely stupid when it comes to the tech he’s sent out, nor is he completely incapable of paying attention when it’s being explained to him.  And yet somehow he ends up on the other side of the world staring down at a grenade so different from the pineapple type that he’s used to—he turns it upside down, peering at it through narrowed eyes—he can’t figure out how to use it.

"Are you playing it up for dramatic tension, Bond?  Throw the damned bomb!"  Q is beginning to sound flustered, as good as shouting from someone else, and suddenly it clicks in Bond’s head: Q’s crisp vowels and buttery consonants, "Depress the lever like so—" and Bond does, chucking it away to see the bright flower of flame that blooms where there were men with guns only moments ago.

It happens again on the next mission, and it’s the damnedest thing—he  _knows_  Q’s explained how this one works, knows it because Q took time to do so after Bond’s gaffe with the grenade.  He blinks down at the secure case, perplexed and poleaxed.  ”Ha-bloody-ha, Double-oh Seven,” Q is muttering in his ear.  ”How funny of you to pretend the tech is too advanced for you.  Really, the epitome of comedy, you.”  As before, Bond has a moment of visceral memory—”—and with a nifty half-turn here, hey presto!”—and knows, quite unexpectedly, how to maneuver the case.  

The third time it happens, there’s no pretending it’s not Q’s voice that triggers his memory: he’s halfheartedly thrusting into the mark’s wife, sinuous little jerks of his hips that never fail to please, but the encounter’s going south rapidly until, breathy in his ear—” _James_?  Busy?” and he hears in stereo in his mind a soft, shivering gasp that leaves him shocked and twitching in the woman’s arms.  She’s delighted, but only half as pleased as the laughter in his ear.


	9. Bond/Q - 72. Mischief Managed

It was astounding sometimes, the many ways Q made Bond feel positively ancient.  A photo of clearly teenaged Q standing in front of a bus sprawled with a banner declaring “Hip, Hip, Harry” for the release of Goblet of Fire was an entirely new foray into cradle-robbing.  

"My gap year," Q was explaining bashfully.  "Took a year off between school and uni—turned into two, actually; must’ve been, what, nineteen when that was taken?—to try out life in the big city.  You must understand, I’d been reading them as they came out since my little brother got the first one for Christmas and declared it boring, and the buses were everywhere that summer."

Bond looked at the photo again, tactfully ignoring the tiny lightning bolt painted in the middle of Q’s forehead, and figured Q knew exactly how old he’d been when the photo was taken.  Instead, he tucked the photo into his wallet—despite Q’s protests, because it may have made him feel like Methuselah but the photo wasn’t half adorable—and smiled fondly.  ”Have you made it out to Leavesden, then?”  Q’s eyes lit up.


	10. Sunday

There’s a line on Q’s hip, a crease left behind by the waist of his trousers or perhaps the elastic of his pants, and Bond lets his fingers fall along the shallow valley of it. Q’s breath is easy, slow, and Bond thinks he is perhaps asleep. It doesn’t matter. Either way, he’s soft and warm, wrapped in Bond’s sweatshirt with the lion and the unicorn spread across his chest. Bond strokes over a bared leg, pressing his fingers to the bruises from last night and sighs.

“No,” Q whines, shuffling on the mattress, and Bond grins to himself.

“Lovely boy,” he coos. “Lovely, lovely boy.”

“Go back to sleep.” The command lacks some power through the pillow Q’s covered his face with. His hips twist; Bond can see love bites high on his inner thigh. He growls. “No,” Q tells him. “No sex.”

“No sex,” Bond agrees genially, leaning in to lift the shirt to reveal Q’s pale, slightly squishy stomach anyway. Q peers at him from under the edge of the pillow.

“Oral counts. We’re not American politicians, Bond.”

There’s no recompense for it: Bond bypasses the sleepy, tender package of Q’s cock and buries his face in the plush of his belly. Q hates this softness, but it’s Bond’s favorite, warm and shaking with suppressed laughter as he pulls the shirt over his head and begins to pepper the skin with sucking kisses. They’ll be a livid pink for hours yet, Bond thinks proudly. Q’s hands come down to rest on the back of his head, and then the duvet comes up over his shoulder; they’re in a tiny, warm cocoon of sunlight, and suddenly Bond’s veins feel too small for everything that’s trying to move within them. He stills, and Q pets his head through the shirt. He thinks about mouthing the words now, the ones he’s afraid of, about hiding them in Q’s welcoming body until he’s ready to use them, but when he presses his mouth to the flesh he finds they’re already there, Q’s stomach full of them already. He shudders and presses his ear close to listen to the echo.

“No sex?” Bond asks instead, and Q’s laugh is almost a giggle. Bond can’t fit any more than his head and shoulders into the sweatshirt with Q in it, but Q’s eyes sparkle when he lifts the collar to peer down at him.

“A little,” Q acquiesces. He pinches his fingers about half a centimetre apart—“This many sex.”

Bond plays along, rocking forward until he’s able to crawl to his knees. The duvet slips from his shoulders and the cool of the room is shocking, but at his front, Q is still a furnace. “No,” he whines playfully, pushing at the sweatshirt until he can kiss at Q’s clavicle and the dip at the bottom of that long, elegant throat. “More than that.”

“Three, then,” Q agrees with a hum. His mouth makes a sweet, round shape around the sigh that escapes him when Bond pinches a nipple.

“Three sex,” Bond confirms.

“Three sex,” Q says, nodding.

“You’re ridiculous,” Bond tells him fondly.

“Your ridiculous,” Q nods again, and. And he can’t keep it in anymore, can’t not say—

“I love you.” If he whispers it, voice hard and rough and so, so quiet against the side of Q’s throat, perhaps he won’t hear—

Of course he hears. Bond goes still, but Q plucks idly at the hair on his nape and doesn’t speak. When Bond manages to meet his eyes, his cheeks are flushed, his lips red from kissing and his jawline is dark with stubble. There is just the lingering trace of wet at the corner of his lashes, but Bond can be quiet, too. Q’s lips taste like salt, like last night’s curry, like he needs to brush his teeth. He lies down again and Q pets his hair.


	11. Absolute Submission

Post-coital James Bond is a sight to behold.  His chest is sweaty, glistening, streaked with his own spunk and matted.  There’s a beautiful flush that’s crept along the rims of his ears and down the sides of his throat to pool in a vee down his front that points to his heaving belly and thoroughly satisfied cock.  A job well done, and Bond flinches hard when Q trails one foot along the spent, sensitive length of it.  Q grins.

And as beautiful as Bond is now, blissed out and submissive as Q strokes over his cock with his toes, with the smooth arch of his foot, with the slightly dry heel that makes Bond’s breath catch in a whimper high in his chest, he was even more beautiful five minutes ago with Q’s fingers up his arse, with Q’s knee between his thighs, with Q’s teeth bruising a vivid purple lovebite that looks like it hurts and that Bond can’t stop stroking dazedly.  He was so beautiful as he came, mouth open and wordless, eyes squinched in the pain of an orgasm that was nearly violent as Q pulled it from him past the handprints that still marred his arse, past the old-fashioned ideas of masculinity, past the perpetual sneer that had fallen away with the first full press of Q’s fingers at his arsehole.

James Bond with a cock in his mouth is going to be even more lovely, he’s sure.


	12. Q/Denbigh snippet (may be continued)

Q opens the door to find him already seated, cocksure and smirking slightly.  There’s an expression he wears around his eyes, part wry humour and part smug teenager, and it makes Q want to smack him.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” he says instead.  Denbigh’s smile at that looks as though he’s rudely interrupted a joke.

“Yes.  You’re And–”

“My job code is QINT5574.  I’m responsible for overseeing the integrity of the intranet, outfitting outgoing agents in the OO Division, and leading minor missions, in addition to heading up Q Branch.  Most people here at Six just call me Quartermaster.  Q, for short.”

If the correction, unsubtle as it is, phases Denbigh, he makes no sign of it, just sucks at the edge of his lip before shuffling the papers in his lap.  For the first time, Q notices the manila folder: thin.  Not good.

“And do you think you do a good job as Quartermaster?”  The question is innocent; the lilt in that voice and the lifted brow are not.

“You’re Irish, aren’t you?” Q asks instead.  Denbigh’s smile is patronising as he puts down the folder.   _Do your worst_ , he seems to say with a generous wave of his palm.  Q misinterprets it deliberately, seating himself at the unoccupied chair behind his desk.  He feels like he’s been sent to the Headmaster’s office.

“How did you work that one out?” Denbigh asks eventually, when Q doesn’t pick up the thread.

“Oh, work it out?  I mean, I can hear it in your voice, I suppose.  You don’t seem to be trying to hide it or anything.”

“And can you tell?  When someone is hiding something?” Denbigh asks, and Q’s smile goes plastic and brittle.  He’s given him an in.  Fuck.

“Well, that is, if you’re trying to hide it, you’re not doing too great a job with it, are you?” Q asks.  Denbigh grins.

“I find so few people are good at hiding things.  They all think they’re great at it, but it’s much easier than you’d think to find secrets if you’re looking for them,” Denbigh says, and.  And, well, this conversation could go one of two ways: Q could continue pretending he doesn’t feel the menace leaking from Denbigh’s pores, or.

Or.  He straightens in his seat, makes a show of crossing his legs–ankle on knee; it’s a power stance.  “And we all know you’re here for secrets, aren’t you?”  It’s barely a question.

Denbigh doesn’t try to pretend otherwise, and he has to admit he finds himself respecting him more for it.  “I’m really not supposed to tell you about the inquiry.”

“And yet if you don’t ask questions, how shall I know to answer them sufficiently?” Q agrees.

“You’re a sensible man, I see.”

“Are you looking to fire me?” Q asks bluntly.  Denbigh laughs.

“No, of course not!  Why ever would I do that?”


	13. Cuddles (for beili)

Q’s hair is slightly sticky, smells faintly unwashed.  He doesn’t care; Bond nestles his chin into its tangled mass and breathes deeply.  In his arms, Q still feels like iron, corded muscles banded tight and fearful.  

He doesn’t say it will be okay.  He doesn’t; it would be unappreciated, untrue.  Instead, he folds Q in tight, tucks his head down, guides him in close and secret and private.  It isn’t until Q’s hot breath hits the skin of his throat that Bond recognises the tension in his own body.  He forces himself to breathe slowly, to measure each meted breath until his pulse slows and his chest touches Q’s with each inhale. 

Q melts infinitesimally, the way an ice cream melts: slow runnels at first, then sweet-sticky landslides that reveal a soggy core.  Bond strokes his hair as he goes soft and warm and clinging, as he sighs into the embrace and there are little, reverent kisses on his collarbone, on his throat, on his shoulder.

He isn’t forgiven for making Q worry–there’s nothing to forgive; they both know this job and the fact that one day there won’t be a knock on the door at two am after a long, weary flight home–but they’re ready to move past it.  When Q finally steps out of his embrace, Bond can even bring himself to smile at the exhausted man in front of him.

“Welcome home,” Q says.  It’s all that needs to be said.


	14. Bond/Q - wool socks

The cats, Bond noticed, were cleverer than him.  They’d become scarce on the ground, scattering the moment the front door opened and reappearing only for food.  They’d become almost obnoxiously clingy on days when Q was working overtime, but otherwise they were furry ghosts.  Tonight, aside from the faint whiff of the cat box–Bond refused to clean it, but Q’d been away for nearly a week working himself into a nub trying to drag Double-oh Three out of an active hostage situation in Brazil–it was almost as though they didn’t exist at all.

Fucking traitors.

“James,” Q whined, dragging the sound out until Bond’s name contained more vowels than he’d imagined there could be in it.  “It’s cold!”

“Mm,” Bond hummed absently, wriggling his toes in the chilly air of the flat.  He’d committed himself to the farce that they weren’t about to freeze and drop off, and now he had to stick with it.  “I felt a bit overwarm earlier, if I’m being honest.”  Earlier, of course, meaning before his return to Old Blighty’s draughty shores from his tropical mission in Honduras.  Here in London it was four degrees out and his bollocks were trying to climb their way back into his body as punishment for sitting so far from the radiator.  “You could try a blanket?”

Q gawked at him in open disbelief.  “I’m lonely!” he tried again.

Bond froze, vacillating between conceding defeat and–“You could get another cat?  For snuggling with.”

Q looked at him–the eyebrow again.  Damn it; busted for clearly lying.  Considering the stern discussion they’d just had about cat boxes and furry tripping hazards, suggesting another fuzzy menace was tantamount to a white flag.  Q’s smile was smug as he inched closer.

“No, Q.”  He’d had enough playing around, enough dodging the subject.  “You stay over there.”

“I just want a kiss,” Q said petulantly, and Bond could have almost believed him if the hair on his arm weren’t rising.  Literally.

“You absolute menace.”

“Don’t you want a snuggle, darling?” Q asked coyly.  “I can even do that thing you like with my tongue.”

And god help him, Bond couldn’t help but hesitate.  Not very long, not long enough that most people would have noticed, but Q was a spy, too, and that tongue thing really was very good; Q’s eyes lit up with an unholy mirth.  “No, Q,” Bond tried, pushing deeper into the arm of the sofa, but they both knew it was too little too late.  Q’s hand drifted closer.

The little arc of blue electricity cracked the air between Q’s fingertips and Bond’s arm with a sharp snap.  “Mother _fucker_ ,” Bond swore, and even Q sat back, sucking his fingertips.  “God _damn_  it, you little ass.”  Underneath the chair on the other side of the sitting room, four luminescent eyes watched the scene smugly.

“That was a good one!” Q crowed.

“There’s something wrong with you,” Bond told him.  “I’m stealing all your goddamned socks.  Wool socks and woolen jumpers and all that rug in the hall for you to arm yourself with.  You’re a demon and your cats are terrified of your reign of terror.”

Q just cackled as Bond tackled him to the sofa cushions.


	15. Bond/Felix - Rummy

“Gin.”

They’ve been drinking for hours, playing even longer, and Bond doesn’t know if Felix is asking for another drink or declaring a win.  Bond peers at the cards myopically for a moment before remembering they’re playing spades and laughing.  Felix is already pouring; caught red-handed, he grins at Bond.

“Cheers, Felix.  I’m completely pissed,” Bond admonishes him.

“Why, whatever have I done to get you vexed at me?”  Butter wouldn’t melt in Felix’s mouth, so cool and sweet and innocent.

“Nothing yet, and that’s the problem,” Bond says, and when he pulls Felix in by his tie he laughs.


	16. Bond/Q - Things You Said When You Thought I Was Asleep

Breath catches in his throat, tight with fire.  He wants to turn over.  He can’t turn over.  Q’s fingers continue their gentle petting.

“–and then when Bill told me it wasn’t–that you hadn’t–you’d laugh at me, I’m sure.  I mean, I laughed at me, too, when it was over.  I thought, ‘Who’s this boy, so heartsore with love that even hearing–’”  A sigh, then, and Bond’s heart burns.

“So you have to promise me, because if I made such a damned fool of myself before we were even together, if it hurt so much when you still belonged to Madeleine–you have to promise me, James.  Promise me you won’t die, not until I’ve had my fill of you.”

Bond’s chest hurts with it, with the feel of his ribs cracking around the swell of his heart.  It’s not a promise Q would ask for in the daylight; it’s not a promise he can keep, and they both know it, but here in the moonlight, in the water-blue sheets of Q’s bed as he strokes calming fingers across Bond’s hair, through the whorl at his crown, down the temples where Bond’s blood is pulsing hot beneath the skin, along the two days’ stubble that’s prickling at the edge of his jaw–here is the place to ask for such things, if there is anywhere.  Now is the time to pray mercy from the gods.  In daylight, they’re the gods.  They shape regimes, bend the world into a better shape.  Here, Q can beg gifts of a higher power.

He knows how much the betrayal hurt Q.  To find Madeleine a wicked siren in fair mermaid’s form–it had hurt Bond, of course; being turned over to Blofeld had hurt, of course.  Blofeld’s revenge had hurt, of course; knowing he’d turned his back on people who cared, people like Q, for her had hurt.  It had hurt Q more.  

The shadows in Q’s eyes, the tremble in his mouth.  They’d been hard to mistake those first few days back as anything other than sympathy; now, they’re harder still to see as anything other than love.  Q loves him.  Bond aches and knows he can’t take that away from him.

So he lets Q stroke his hair and murmur soft love-words to him until his anxious heart can rest, until long lashes dip finally like shadows over the moons of his cheeks, until his breath is finally slow and peaceful in Bond’s ear where he’s curled around his head as if he can protect him through willpower alone.  He lets Q fall asleep and then carefully untwines the twist of his body that will ache in the morning if he leaves him like that, carefully soothes him into the bed, smoothes the duvet over the narrow chest so full of heart, and presses kisses of his own into the clouds of hair.

“My Q.  My Q.”


	17. Bond/Q - Things You Said After You Kissed Me

His mouth works, open, stunned.  Of all the things that could have happened–he knows he looks a gormless fool, fingers curling uselessly in his lap and jaw gaping slack.  It’s.

“I–” Q tries.  Bond smirks, and.  “Well.  Well, I–” he tries again.  It’s more information than he can comprehend, circuitry frying, OS offline, motherboard shutting down systematically to prevent a catastrophic meltdown.  “Well.  That is to say.”

“Q.”  Bond’s voice is unfair.  It’s.  It’s unfair, and that’s all there is to it; he sounds smooth, smoky creme caramel and just the faintest taste of laughter on the back of his tongue.  He’s unflappable, unflapped, and Q is going to do his best to flap for both of them.

“God.”  And thank god it’s a new word; he’s expanded his vocabulary by sixteen percent just by adding one word, and James Bond is nothing if not smug about it.

“Oh, ‘James’ will do just fine,” Bond says.  He’s a gloating arse-face, and.

“Piss off,” Q snips back, but even to his own ears it sounds stroppy, weak.  He’s suffered a huge blow to the foundations of his world, though; he rather thinks he’s allowed an off moment or two.

Or more.  Bond sits back against the slats of his chair–it’s the lumpy, uncomfortable one Q has in the little private room in his office he saves for meetings with people he doesn’t particularly care for.  If he’d known that Bond would be–well.  It’s.  Well.

“If you’d rather,” Bond agrees genially, and.  Well.  And Q’s waited half the time he’s known this insufferable man for just this moment, held out desperate, sad hope through two pretty blondes and one broken leg–his own, and hadn’t he waited with bated breath for Bond to see him in hospital, every day turning wistful eyes each time the door had opened, only to find he’d been in Tehran the whole time? the chocolates that came a month later were nice, and wasn’t that just like Bond to remember despite his own head trauma?–but Q’s always, always known in his heart of hearts that he was being a fool.  He’s always had a problem falling for straight men and asses, and James Bond is both.  Has always been both, until suddenly, now, he’s not.  Well.  

Well.  Like fuck is he letting this opportunity get away.  Bond is still mid-word, some mealy apology about springing it on him, when Q grabs his lapel and hauls him in.  It’s awkward; Bond obviously wasn’t expecting a kiss. and they bump noses, clack teeth.  The temple of Q’s glasses dig into Bond’s forehead, and his sweaty fingers slip against the smooth silk blend of Bond’s suit.  It’s incredibly awkward, and when Q pulls back, Bond’s starry-eyed.

“Well,” Bond says.


	18. Bond/Q - Things You Said Under the Stars and In the Grass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble is in the same universe as [A Most Peculiar Way](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2816909).

The heath is quiet this time of night.  There’s birdsong, as there always is this time of year; the thing about midsummer is that the sun never technically sets, and the whole day’s been a hazy twilight he can barely remember but for the fact that it’ll be printed on the inside of his eyelids forever.  There’s a bottle at his hip, a red with good body, and on the other end of the blanket Q’s staring up at the sky like he’s never seen anything so incredible.  His bottle is empty, and Bond pretends he can’t see those square fingers inching across toward his.

“Did you know,” Q starts, tipping his chin up as he leans back, moonglow blue-white on his cheekbones and in the hollow of his throat, “that there are so many planets in the known universe that we don’t have a number to talk about it?  I mean, scientists don’t know for sure how many there are; we probably won’t know for a long time, if ever–if I started counting this moment and did nothing else for the rest of my life, and the next person were born and immediately started counting in the instant of my death, and the one after him did the exact same thing, we’d probably still never count the end of the stars.  There would be stars still uncounted, stars and planets in the sky that were born and died before we ever reached them on the list.  And that doesn’t count the moons and the orphaned planets and, like I said, all the planets that haven’t been born yet or that would die before we got to their turn to be counted.

“And the mass of a black hole can hold the place of a planet of the same mass, though it would of course take up much less area, and we can’t even see those and there are–” Q pauses for breath, wetting his lips.  “Billions!  More!  There are more black holes than we could possibly ever know about, because they’re nearly invisible against the black of space and we may never figure out a way to actually see them, I mean.”

He’s getting worked up now; someone else on a nearby blanket shushes at them, and Bond has to hold back the instinct to hiss like a cat.  Q is obediently drunk as Bond coaxes him onto his shoulder, only to find Q’s snagged his bottle and is suckling it like a babe against his chest.  His laughter makes the bottle slosh, and Q tries sucking the wine from the fabric of his shirt before he decides his little scientist is absolutely too pissed.  Q only whines a moment when the bottle is set a few feet away, out of reach of grasping arms and any drunken flailing.

“Tell me more about the stars,” Bond murmurs, and Q makes the most fake-sounding grumbling complaint he’s ever heard.

“And here I thought _you_  were the astronaut!”


	19. Bond/Q - Things You Said With Too Many Miles Between Us

“I could have–” Bond says, and.

“No.”  He doesn’t want to hear it, can’t hear it because.  Because.

“I could have, Q.  I want you to know that.”  And even as he says it Q can hear behind him: laughter, in German and Swiss and French.  “–la mariée–” and Q remembers enough of Mme Pauline’s lessons to feel hot, sticky, nauseated.

“You’re drunk, Bond.  You’re very drunk.”

“Yes,” Bond agrees.  He doesn’t even have the kindness in him to pretend he’d say these things sober, to pretend–and James Bond is the _cruelest_  man Q has ever known.  “But I could have–”

“Go.  Back to your party, back to–” Q pushes through, even as Bond speaks over him.

“–loved you, and I know you think–”

“–Madeleine, back to your goddamned–”

“–that you’re not–not the loveliest man I’ve ever seen–”  Wine glasses clink in the background. 

“– _wife_  and your _wedding reception_ –”

“–but you are, and I could have–”

It’s too much.  “How dare you do this to her?  Today?  To me?” Q demands.

Bond is silent a long moment, long enough for Q to wonder if he’s wandered off, if he’s fallen asleep in a whiskey-sodden puddle, if he’s.  If he’s given up.  Again.  If he’s given up on Q again.  When he speaks, Bond’s voice is small.  “I could have, and you’ve always thought it was your fault that I didn’t, when I’m just.”

“A coward,” Q finishes for him.  Bond doesn’t argue.  “Because you can only say this now, from three countries away, on a day you know I won’t do anything about it.  I _can’t_  do anything about it.”  It feels like begging, how much he needs Bond to understand him.  He gives Bond a minute to answer, a solid minute counted off slow second by slow second.  When it’s done, so is he.

Bond takes a breath.  His mouth sounds wet.  Q wonders how drunk he really is.

“Bien faire.”  He says it before Bond can say something else tragic, because.  One of them has to make a decision.  Because he’s scared of the decision Bond might make.  Because he can hear Madeleine in the background on her wedding day.

“I could have–” Bond protests, and Q shakes his head, even though Bond can’t see him over the phone.

“I know.  But you didn’t.”


End file.
